ARCADIA — When you consider roughly 50 percent of marriages in the U.S. end in divorce, what Vann and Sauci Belvoir have going is comparable to a $10,000 claiming horse beating the great Secretariat. What they’ve built during 14 years of marriage is tantamount to a $5,000 yearling winning the Kentucky Derby.

I showed up at Belvoir’s barn at Santa Anita Park early one morning expecting to hear yelling and screaming. Instead I saw Vann aboard a horse outside the barn and Sauci nowhere to be found.

Ah-hah. I surmised they can’t stand the sight of one another.

I can understand that. After years of observing single and married folks and having gone through a divorce myself six years ago, I realize it’s tough enough for couples to co-exist at home let alone spend time at work together.

Can you imagine Edith Bunker getting up each morning and going to the loading dock with Archie? Or how about Al Bundy selling shoes alongside his wife Peg?

Get the picture? Yeah, I know. It’s not a pretty one.

About 10 minutes after I arrived at Barn 25, Sauci showed up aboard one of Belvoir’s horses following a gallop over Santa Anita’s main track. Now I was ready for the good stuff. Would Vann yell at Sauci for breezing the horse too fast? Would Sauci lash out at Vann for not having the horse fit enough?

What unfolded next is something straight out of Hollywood. These two not only like each other, they’re in love. And get this — they enjoy working with one another and like being together 24 hours a day.

Vann told me he’s lucky to have someone like Sauci in his life. Sauci tells about the time before they were married when her heart sunk after she noticed another exercise rider wearing Vann’s engagement ring.

They live in San Dimas and have two children, Ace and Jade. They’re a regular reincarnation of Ozzie and Harriet. Perhaps they can start their own new series, “Leave It to Ace.”

“I know it sounds weird,” Vann said.

No, not really. Sounds like a match made in heaven.

“Our relationship is different than most people,” Vann said. “We never fight. We get along. It’s different than I guess most relationships. I’m lucky and fortunate to have somebody like her in my life. We enjoy it. We’ve worked every day together, we go home and we’re best friends.”

Sauci said she asked that fellow exercise rider one afternoon how long she’d been engaged.

“She said six years. And I thought to myself, ‘Well, you’re never going to get married then.’ Suddenly I had hope,” Sauci said.

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Much like her husband, Sauci treasures the time they spend together.

“We like hanging out together, at least I do,” Sauci said with a laugh. “I think it’s fun. I enjoy it. I don’t think we ever bring anything home. We get along really well together.”

Sauci gallops the horses, helps around the barn and does the books. Vann, a former jockey who gave up that part of the sport because of problems making weight, does the rest and with pretty good results after moving from Emerald Downs in Auburn, Wash., in July 2011 for the Del Mar meet.

“I told my assistant, ‘Hey, let’s just go down there. Worst-case scenario, we have a nice five-week vacation.’ But we did well,” he said.

They’ve been winning at about a 15- to 20-percent clip since making the move, which in horse racing is not too shabby. Vann is particularly adept at the claiming game; he won with about 25 percent of his starters in their first race off the claim.

But he’s found the Southern California circuit is much different than the Northwest. He’s learned your competitive juices better be flowing if you’re going to survive at tracks like Santa Anita and Del Mar.

“You have a horse that’s been running second or third for $16,000, you put him back in for $16,000 and you should be one of the favorites,” he said. “But that’s not necessarily so. You might have a guy like (Bob) Baffert, (John) Sadler or (Jerry) Hollendorfer or anybody around here and they might be dropping horses from $40,000 into the $16,000 (level). So here you are thinking you’re gonna be one of the favorites and you might end up being 10-1.

“These guys around here, they’re aggressive. They know how to play the game.”

Belvoir eventually would like to duplicate what one of his former clients has accomplished — graduate from the claiming ranks into the stakes game. He used to ride for Hollendorfer, who started with cheaper horses and now has one of the strongest barns in Southern California.

“A good horse is a lot easier to train than a bad one,” Vann said. “A good horse, if you just put them on the track and point them in the right direction, they’re going to run. Hopefully one day we can get to that point, but you have to start at the bottom.

“We’re starting to build up quality in the stable. We (recently) won two maiden Cal-bred special weights so that helped the barn. You gotta win, you gotta produce. That’s the best advertisement, winning races. If we can keep doing that, I think it will keep people coming our way.”

But no matter what, the Belvoirs have each other and their two children, and that’s everything. Working together is just icing on the cake.

“If you have different jobs, then your life would be only half together,” Vann said.

Spoken like a man who never watched an episode of “Married With Children.”